No strings attached (16 page)

And now here was Eric, his blue eyes unrelenting as he held her gaze, his expression as tender as it was intense. And everything inside her, every part of who she was, knew she would not recover from him easily.

She saw in him so much of what she wanted—was there anything about him she didn’t want?—and yet she’d never truly thought to find her fantasy man, or considered what the fulfillment of her fantasy would mean.

She’d never recognized the threat to her control, the desire to give herself up completely to this man who refused to look away, whose vibrancy and sharply tuned focus warmed the air shimmering around her as surely as it heated her skin from the inside out.

He got to his feet then and Chloe swallowed hard at the picture he made, the uncertainty of a little boy lost, of a delinquent caught breaking and entering, and the determination of a man who’d come to claim what was his.

Chloe felt her restraint crack and chip away. How was she supposed to fight a battle she’d already lost? She set down her Corona, then placed both palms flat on the butcher-block surface, her fingers curling over the edge and seeking purchase. But the solid block of wood offered her nothing in the way of a solid foundation.

She was on her own.

The suit Eric still wore was a deep-charcoal-gray pinstripe cut in classic lines. He’d since rid himself of his tie, and his white shirt gaped open. Chloe swore that even from here she could see the pulse beating in the hollow of his throat.

The patio was lit by sconces on either side of the door and the replica of a gas streetlamp that stood at one corner of the bench. There was enough light to see the moisture in the air. Eric had to be cool. A fine sheen of mist covered his hair and his shoulders.

Chloe wanted to beckon him inside, but she wanted even more to wait for him to make the first move, like William Hurt in
Body Heat.
The tension between them crackled, the electricity in the air that of a summer storm, sharp and biting and hot.

She breathed as deeply as the anxiety-driven compression of her chest would allow. Oh, how she could taste the heat of her own rushing blood.

And then Eric moved a step forward, and a second, the third bringing him within arm’s length of the sliding glass doors. Chloe prayed she hadn’t locked the latch when she’d filled the bird feeder this afternoon. Or that Eric, somehow, had entered through her front door, releasing the catch when he’d stepped outside.

But he had to have come over the courtyard fence. A proverbial scaled wall. And she realized the lengths he’d gone to to be here, to see her.

To have her.

Her knees shook. Her thighs trembled. Her heart seemed to pound in her throat. And then he reached for the door and shoved. It slid open along the tracks, and Chloe wanted to cheer. One long step and he was inside and crossing the dimly lit dining area, his footsteps determined but nearly silent on the tiles.

And then he was in the kitchen, and his nostrils flared as he caught her scent—whether perfume or arousal, she had no way of knowing. But it hardly mattered any longer because he was there, and his hands gripped her shoulders as he backed her into the refrigerator and lowered his head.

His mouth wasn’t rough, but it was demanding, of her surrender and her acknowledgment that he would not be walking away. Thrilled into submission, she parted her lips and met his seeking tongue, slipped her hands beneath his jacket and skated her palms up the shirt on his back. His skin beneath the fabric was deliciously cool, and she shivered and pulled him into her own body’s warmth.

For a moment she wished she still wore her shoes so he wouldn’t have to bend so far to meet her mouth. But then she realized their difference in height placed the fly of his pants just below her navel. And the press of his erection into the soft give of her belly stole her breath.

His lips teased hers. He played with first the top and then the bottom, then sucked on the tip of her tongue. His movements were alternately soft and hard, daring and subtle, sweet and savage, questioning and bold.

Chloe was certain she’d never known more physical sensation from one single kiss. It was more than the involvement of lips and tongue and teeth. It was the vibration of Eric’s heartbeat thudding against her hands. The cold tile floor beneath her bare feet. The hum of the refrigerator at her back. The heat of his fingertips where they bruised her shoulders.

All of this amplified by his sweet, sweet mouth. And then suddenly he wasn’t so sweet anymore. He was wildly moved to mate. Chloe hadn’t known a man’s
hunger could so suddenly spring to life until he seemed to be nothing but living desire.

Eric’s hands, desire’s hands, were seeking, searching, slipping over her shoulders, down her arms, across her belly, up to her breasts. He kneaded, squeezed, and she moaned into his mouth. He ground harder, desire ground harder, mouth to mouth, erection to belly, and then the heel of his hand moved to the mound between her legs. No preliminaries, no gentle coaxing. Just a kiss that became sex, with no romance between.

All Chloe could do was spread her legs, giving desire room to explore. He went straight for the hem of her dress, hiking it up, digging beneath, finding the responsive warmth he was seeking, and driving his fingers deep.

Chloe gasped at the shocking invasion. She gouged her fingers into his biceps as he pushed in and out with the whole of his hand. She was stretched wide-open and his fingers hit every hot spot of her sex.

His thumb rubbed hard circles around and around the bud of sensation swollen to a tight knot and aching for the contact that would send her over the edge. Already tonight he’d inflamed her this way, and she wanted to return the same maddening torture.

So she sent her hands to the fastenings of his pants and went to work on belt, metal catch and zipper, shoving his suit pants and his boxers down his backside, then moving to his front and stretching the elastic of his waistband and allowing his sex to spring free.

Again he was hugely swollen, erect and jutting upward. The taut skin of his glans fairly glistened, as did the moisture beading at the opening in the tip. Chloe wanted to lean down and take him in her mouth, but Eric didn’t allow her the time.

He stole even the pleasure of touch, bending down for the pants he’d kicked free and the condom he’d stashed in the pocket. Chloe was determined to do this much at least, and grabbed the packet from his hand.

She rolled the rubber the length of his shaft, slowly and with teasing intent, touching her tongue to the bow of her upper lip and watching her handiwork rather than Eric’s face. She sensed the heat of his gaze but refused to answer the visual, visceral pull.

This encounter was all about sex—one hundred percent physical sensation; no eye contact, emotion or meaning allowed—and she was going to take charge. She refused to let feelings come into play as she exacted revenge for the uncertain confusion his earlier possession had sparked.

Standing on tiptoe, she lifted her other leg, wrapped it around his body, dug her heel into the back of his thigh. Hands met between bodies, his spreading her wetness, hers guiding him into alignment. He laced his fingers through hers, then drove his body forward, trapping their hands between.

At that—the joining of their bodies so intimately, with hands so casually clasped—she couldn’t help but look up.

“I couldn’t wait for you to call.” His eyes gazed down with the most tender of emotions, all things kind and gentle and caring and warm.

And Chloe couldn’t take it. She couldn’t handle what his expression revealed. She pulled her hand free of his, moved it around to his backside to prompt him to move. But he remained unmoving. Immobile. His body buried deep with no place to go unless he did as she asked, as she demanded with the squeezing and prodding of fingers and hands.

Still he remained motionless and impaled. Still she urged him into action, growing desperate and emotionally frightened by his insistence on making her wait. She wanted to slap him, to shout. Instead she growled in frustration and scratched her short nails over the small of his back.

He leaned his forehead to hers and whispered, “Shh. I’m right here. I’m not going anywhere.”

“That’s the problem. You need to move.”

“I will,” he said, and subtly shifted, rubbing up and into her core, which he’d so easily inflamed.

She hated that he held this power over her. That he could make her crazy with a look and nothing more. That he was able to touch her and take her apart until she wanted to scream with pleasure. And cry at the frustrating loss of her cool.

“Maybe you could get to it sometime soon?” She snarled the question, smacked her palm to his backside.

Bending his knees, he slipped the one hand still between their bodies down underneath their slick joining to play between her legs. His fingers tickled the skin of her thighs, moved to tease the edges of her sex, where his shaft remained buried to the hilt.

That one hand incited her to whimper. And at her sound of surrender, his other hand came up to cradle her face.

“Chloe, I lov—”

“No!” She cut him off with her shout, then pressed her fingers to his lips. “No, you don’t. You can’t. Please.” A sob burst free and she hated herself for the weakness. “Just make me come. That’s all I want.”

Eric closed his eyes. His jaw worked to repress the words she knew he wanted to say. When he looked at
her again, his expression showed a battle between anger and hurt. Neither sentiment did a thing to set Chloe at ease.

“Not a problem, princess.” Eric’s mouth twisted. “One orgasm coming right up.”

And then he began to move. Before she could protest or tell him to get the hell out of her house, he started to slowly thrust, to withdraw, to push forward, to pull away. He knew her too well, knew how to strike the head of his match to set her fire ablaze.

Her body took over, refusing to listen to her mind or her principles or even her common sense. The friction of Eric’s movements brought her to the edge and sent her tumbling over.

No man but Eric had ever so perfectly met her physical needs.

Even while she hated him, she loved him.

M
ONDAY, MIDMORNING
,
Chloe checked her reflection in the mirror of the ladies’ room down the hall from her office. The lighting was, of course, perfect, the room’s design conceived by Anton Neville’s firm, with input from all six of the gIRL-gEAR partners.

Today Chloe had chosen to dress more conservatively than usual. Her suit was a pale pink leather, the straight skirt hitting midthigh, the short-sleeved top double-breasted and waist length. Her stockings were a pale cream and her stacked-heel pumps a bright fuchsia.

She’d applied her makeup deftly as well, carefully blending the shades of blues and purples on her eyelids and going with a pale pink frost on her lips.

Tugging the hem of her top into place and smoothing the lines of her skirt, she took a deep breath and blew it out slowly. She was worrying too much over her appearance, when she saw Sydney every day, and cosmetics and clothing weren’t half as important as the confession she needed to make.

Yes, the women were partners, but Sydney held a controlling interest and had the final word when it came to the firm’s business. When it came to personnel issues, as well. And since Chloe had professional issues to discuss with the woman at the top, she’d
taken her appearance seriously, because she wanted to be taken the same.

She left the ladies’ room and headed up the hallway to the office at the end. Sydney’s space was no larger than the other five offices located on the executive side of the building, but her space did sit in the primo corner, as befitting her position as CEO.

Chloe rapped her knuckles against the door and peeked into the office, which was decorated in rich shades of peacock blue and olive. “Do you have a minute?”

Sydney looked up from the spreadsheet she’d been studying. “Sure. I need a break. These numbers quit making sense about an hour ago.”

Moving into the office, Chloe sat in the chair opposite Sydney’s desk and crossed her legs. “Numbers haven’t made sense to me since first grade, and one plus one equals two.”

Elbows propped on her desk, Sydney settled her chin into the cradle of her laced fingers and smiled. “I think I knew that about you when you kept making wrong change at the coffee shop.”

Chloe couldn’t stop the upward quirk of her mouth. “And here I thought you had me pulling the espresso because I made less mess with the grounds than everyone else.”

“Oh, yeah.” Sydney screwed up her nose. “I forgot about that. I have a bad habit of remembering things the way I want to see them until I’m reminded of what actually happened.”

Here we go.
Chloe took a deep breath. “That’s why I’m here. To remind you.”

“About the espresso?”

Chloe shook her head. If only it were so simple. “About the gIRL-gEAR gIRL ceremony.”

“You got home okay, I hope? Melanie said you weren’t feeling well. I should’ve called to check on you over the weekend, but I’ve been up to my ears with the designers who are sending samples for the Wild Winter Woman fashion show.” Sydney gathered her hair back into a tail at her nape and rubbed the base of her neck with her other hand. She met Chloe’s gaze with a questioning lift of an elegant brow.

“I wasn’t sick. I was with Eric. I shouldn’t have let Melanie cover for me,” Chloe said as her foot begin to nervously swing. “Though, by the time she found me, it’s true that I wasn’t feeling my best.”

Sydney continued to rub at her neck, moving her hand into her hair to massage the base of her skull. Chloe had no idea what the other woman was thinking. No idea if Sydney was about to lower the boom or if she was still processing what Chloe had said and deciding how painlessly to drop the ax.

Instead of doing either, she let go of her hair and leaned forward, lowering her voice as she asked, “What
is
going on with you and Eric? Because this can’t all be about your reputation. Not that I thought that plan would hold water.”

Chloe’s foot stopped swinging. “What makes you say that?”

“Because I don’t see Eric Haydon ever being content in the role of your escort, temporary or not.”

“You mean he’d expect me to live up to my reputation?” And wasn’t that just exactly what she’d done?

Sydney’s brows drew together as if she were trying
to grasp Chloe’s response. “Chloe, you banana. The man is in love with you.”

Chloe’s eyes drifted closed and she let her head fall against the back of the chair. She couldn’t deal with this now. No matter that Eric had been but a breath away from telling her before she’d stopped him with her fingers to his lips.

Sydney cocked her head to the side. “He probably won’t tell you, you know.”

Of course he wouldn’t now. Even Chloe knew that a man had his pride. “He won’t tell me because it’s not the case at all. I’ll admit he has the hots for me. Hell, I’ll admit I have the hots for him.”

“I think you admitted that when you let him drag you out of the dinner.”

Chloe uncrossed her legs and sat forward primly. She was here about gIRL-gEAR, not about Eric. “I owe you an apology, Syd. You and the others. I haven’t held up my end of the agreement we made about keeping our closets clean.”

Sydney sat back, her fingers gripping the curved ends of her armrests. “What do you want me to do, Chloe? It sounds like you’re here for more than an apology. In fact, I’ve thought for a while that you haven’t been as excited about gIRL-gEAR as you were at the beginning.”

Chloe gave a huff of a laugh. “And here I thought I’d done such a bang-up job convincing everyone otherwise.”

“It might have worked if you’d first convinced yourself,” Sydney said, dispensing the sort of wisdom Chloe was coming to recognize as the truth.

“I do love gIRL-gEAR, Syd. Don’t get me wrong. If I’m unhappy it’s because of what I have going on
personally.” Chloe screwed up her mouth. “Sort of a pre-mid-midlife crisis.”

After several thoughtful seconds, Sydney released a long, pent-up sigh. “You know, Chloe, it’s not easy being the boss. I have to put aside our friendship, including all the juicy stuff I’m dying to hear about Eric, to consider what your lowered enthusiasm might mean to the company.”

Chloe quietly laughed. “Not to change the subject, but I have never thought about you as the juicy stuff type.”

Sydney stuck out her tongue. Then she smiled. And then her humor turned wry. “It’s my all-business-all-the-time demeanor that fools people.”

“I’m not sure you’re fooling Ray,” Chloe remarked, struck with the thought for not the first time. “I was watching him the other night. And something tells me he knows what lurks beneath.”

“Unfortunately, he does know, though I’ve always hoped he’d forget.” Sydney picked up her pencil and tapped it against the spreadsheet on her desk. “Did you know that I went to high school with Ray?”

It was Chloe’s turn to squeeze the metaphorical orange. “I had no idea. Neither one of you has ever even hinted that you have a past.” When Sydney appeared on the verge of a squirm, Chloe added, “It wouldn’t be a lurid past, would it? One still skulking about in your closet?”

Sydney’s chin went up. “I do not skulk. And neither do my skeletons.”

“You keep them under wraps, right? And that would make them mummies?”

“That’s terrible,” Sydney said, with both a frown and a chuckle.

“That’s what I told Eric,” Chloe said and, after both women were quiet for a minute, softly added, “Can you give me some time? To work this out? Trust me. It won’t be long, because I’m starting to get on my own nerves in a bad way.”

Sydney got to her feet and circled her desk, her long, peach-colored skirt hugging her hips as she walked, her classic camp shirt in a geometric pattern of peach and black silk delineating her narrow waist.

She settled into the chair next to Chloe and mirrored her head-back, legs-crossed pose. “How about I give you my friendship? Unless I see a noticeable downturn in your department. Then I’ll have to hang you out to dry.”

Spoken like Nolan Ford’s daughter, though Chloe would never voice the comparison. “Just make sure I’m not wearing leather.”

“It’s a deal.” Sydney held out her hand and Chloe laced their fingers together, swinging their joined hands between their two chairs until Sydney turned her head. “You want to get some lunch?”

Chloe considered her stomach, which seemed to have settled. “On two conditions. We go to Mission Burritos and you fill me in on all the juicy stuff about you and Ray Coffey.”

O
NE OF THE PERKS
of owning Haydon’s Half Time and keeping involved in the local sports community was getting to know several of the city’s professional athletes on a first-name and buddy basis.

Palling around with the players wasn’t about boosting his ego or his in-the-know reputation. The interaction, however, allowed Eric to feel part of a brotherhood he’d belonged to all of his life.

He’d been headed for a career in baseball, had attended University of Houston on a full scholarship, had been the pro scouts’ favorite son ever since pitching his high school team to three consecutive state championships.

He’d been ejected from his dreams of a pro career by a torn rotator cuff that three surgeries hadn’t been able to fully repair. He’d thought of coaching; hell, he still thought of coaching.

But being on the field, day in and day out, was asking a lot of a man whose dream had been painfully ripped from his future by the shoulder socket. Eric harbored no resentment, but neither did he see any point in rubbing salt where salt wouldn’t do a bit of good. He’d learned a long time ago to walk away and leave his past in the past.

Tonight Haydon’s had been closed for a private party, a couple’s wedding shower Eric, with Chloe’s help, had hosted for a rookie member of the Houston Astros he’d known from his days of college ball.

Strange, the twists and turns life took. Here Eric was, content with the life he’d made for himself, feeling no bitterness toward his buddy for achieving the professional success of which Eric had dreamed.

What he did envy, however, was his buddy’s relationship with his woman.

And it had taken Chloe Zuniga, of all females, to turn Eric on to what was missing in his life.

His house felt amazingly empty when he went home at night. The big downstairs rooms echoed with silence. The television only provided impersonal voices, chatter to listen to, and he found himself talking back a little too often.

But even more quiet were the rooms upstairs, the
bedrooms he used for storage, the ones he’d left empty. And, most of all, the one where he slept alone. He was tired of sleeping alone. He was tired of living alone.

And the companionship he craved was not the sort to be satisfied with an overgrown, mixed-breed, big-footed mutt, even if he did have a puppy-perfect backyard.

No. While he was here in Haydon’s kitchen cleaning up the party remains, the companion he wanted was in the bar, sitting on a stool, her head resting on crossed arms, taking the nap she claimed to need after working her ass off as his co-hostess.

Chloe Zuniga could deny she had feelings for him until the Red Sox won a pennant.

Eric knew better. It wasn’t the seeing to drinks and hors d’oeuvres and staying on top of the caterers for ice and trash detail and linens and clean crystal that had tapped the bottom of her energy well.

She was beat up by emotion, her exhaustion a result of the bombardment of happy couples, the whispered questions about their relationship, the congratulations on snagging one of the city’s most eligible bachelors.

Eric had heard Chloe’s insistence that they were nothing but good friends. But he’d heard the rest of the talk, too—talk that had hammered away at her resistance to admitting that what they shared had long since moved beyond friendship.

Sure, they were friends—the best of friends as a matter of fact. Intimate friends, though he wasn’t sure lovers was an accurate definition. The sex they’d enjoyed had been too intense, too combustible to be free of consequences, but not tender enough to be called making love.

She hadn’t let it be.

Oh, he’d given her the orgasm she’d begged for that night in her kitchen and, yeah, he’d gotten his, too. And then he’d left the way he’d come, through her courtyard, though this time he’d opened the gate and walked out. One wall at a time was plenty.

He’d seriously thought about not coming back, not seeing her again, blowing off his last wish and her Wild Winter Woman fashion show. He’d been hurt. He’d been pissed. But he was a man of his word, or he was nothing.

And Chloe’s cold shoulder, her fingers pressed to his lips, even her trembling body and quiet sob of release, hadn’t told the same truth as her eyes.

In the end, her eyes were what he’d listened to. What had convinced him that her ivory tower was tumbling down. He’d read more than physical gratification in those eyes and, by God, from now on he refused to cheapen himself and the woman he loved.

No matter his past reputation, Eric Haydon was no longer an easy lay. His princess would not be getting him naked again until they were in his bed and he could make love to her the way she needed to be loved. With heart and soul as well as body.

Resolved, he stored the last of the food he’d come to the kitchen to put away, and headed back into the bar. Chloe was right where he’d left her, with her head down on the bar…asleep. And snoring.

He couldn’t believe it. His princess snored.

If he hadn’t already been a goner, she’d just sent him on his way as she sat there, ankles primly crossed to one side, her deep-rose-colored dress softly draped over her legs and lap, the tiny cap sleeves hugging her shoulders.

He’d turned out all the lights in the bar earlier, once the last of the guests had left, leaving on only the two that lit the swinging doors into the kitchen and the one that glowed from the hallway to his office.

It was enough light to see how relaxed Chloe’s face was in sleep. Her lips were lightly parted and drawn into a bow. Strands of her hair fluttered in her face with each exhalation of breath.

Eric eased up onto the stool next to hers, wanting nothing more than to watch her sleep, preferably on the pillow next to his. Her expression appeared so gentle, so pure, and this was the part of her he loved the most. The part he didn’t understand her reasons for hiding.